Slaying Brings Back Memories Of 1983 Murder

HAMPTON — For some Hampton police and residents, the location of Davion Mutts' body is a haunting reminder.

Russell Gibson was 19 and two years out of high school in June 1983, when his Hampton Terrace neighbor, Scott Gwaltney, mysteriously disappeared.

After an exhaustive search, police found Scott's body in a nearby wooded area. He had been sexually molested and murdered.

Back then, Hampton Police Chief Charles R. "Chuck" Jordan was a detective. He was also one of the officers who found the body.

Jordan couldn't help thinking about Gwaltney on Friday once he learned that the spot where he found the body 22 years ago was less than 100 feet from where an intense search for 4-year-old Davion Mutts ended. William Shanklin -- Davion's aunt's boyfriend -- led police to the child's body. Shanklin is charged with murder.

"It does bring back memories," Jordan said.

After college, Gibson moved to Colorado, married and started a family. He returned in March and now lives on Prince James Drive, just up the street from his boyhood home.

Scott Gwaltney was 13 at the time of his death -- the same age as Gibson's son, Alex, who sat beside him.

Gibson, who delivered newspapers in the neighborhood as a teenager, remembers the anxiety and fear that spread through Hampton Terrace while people searched for Scott.

"People were passing out fliers with his picture and a number to call," Gibson remembered. "I was gone for 20 years, and now I have two children and came back and for this to happen. This is not good."

Gibson says he followed television reports on the search for Davion: "For it to go from the TV screen right to your neighborhood -- it makes you think about a lot of stuff."

It wasn't until August 1999 that Hampton police found Scott Gwaltney's killer. The state forensic lab matched DNA evidence from the scene to Willie Walter Butler Jr. Butler was found guilty of murder and is serving a life sentence. *